Sold into Slavery
Instead of taking Joseph’s life, his brothers came up with a different plan. As they sat down to eat, they noticed a caravan of traders passing by on their way to Egypt. Seizing the opportunity, they decided to sell Joseph as a slave rather than kill him. They stripped him of his beautiful, multicolored robe—the special garment their father had given him—tied his hands, and handed him over to the traders in exchange for twenty pieces of silver.
As the traders led Joseph away, the brothers watched the caravan disappear into the distance, carrying their own flesh and blood to an unknown fate. To cover up their wrongdoing, they took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the garment in its blood. With this false evidence, they planned to deceive their father into believing that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.
Bible Verse:
“Then they took Joseph’s robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. And they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, ‘This we have found; please identify whether it is your son’s robe or not.’”
—Genesis 37:31-32 (ESV)